Hello everyone! Seven days have passed since the start of National Novel Writing month, so it is time for a Novel Update!

First off, there's now a topic for NaNoWriMo in the Off-Topic subforum. Go check it out! It's a great place to talk about NaNo without visiting five different blogs.

And now! My novel!

I'm keeping up on my word counts fairly well, enough that I might finish a day or two early. If I find myself falling too far behind on a particular day, I'll set aside a few hours and write a bunch to catch back up and build a buffer for another crazy day. Honestly, I could have a little more written by now, but my time is taken up by a couple of different projects: A Minecraft Fanart-type base that I'm building in a creative world, and the closing weekend for Jekyll and Hyde. (Two more days!) Once the show is done, I will have 100% of my evenings back, which can be dedicated to writing. (Or you know, homework, which is what I'm doing instead of writing.)

As for the novel itself... It's actually progressing really nicely. I was having a blast creating characters and introducing the world, but after four chapters I realized that I hadn't even introduced the main conflict yet and decided that I needed to get a move on. My current word count, as of this writing, is 11,477. Not too shabby. (I Might insert one more chapter that introduces what the setting actually IS and how it works via student orientation. But I at least wanted to get my main conflict introduced. Is four chapters too much for exposition and introducing the setting?)

There are potential problems that I face though: Commitment and Perserverance are one of them. I have a tendency to not finish projects, and I'm worried that I'll do the same with this book as I have with so many others. Another is Attitude: Keeping up spirit at the half-way point when it starts to slow down and I have to force myself to write.

The third is support. I was walking with a friend last night and he asked about one of my rules (Will not buy Alpha Sapphire until the book is done) and he asked in such as way that it sounded as if he didn't think I could make it. (He just wants me to buy the game on launch day, Methinks.) Don't get me wrong, I've got a lot of other awesome friends that are also working on NaNo and they're a huge help. I'm just worried about haters and doubters weighing me down.

So, to summarize: The book is going really well, and I'll have more time to dedicate to it once the show ends and I get my evenings back. I'm hoping that starting sunday I can pound out a few extra thousand words here and there that will carry me through the days I have too much homework to write.